Classroom discipline is one of the biggest difficulties in teaching. This book describes a system of classroom management that combines the characteristics of a good teacher with those of a successful disciplinarian. The main message is that responsibility for good behavior belongs with the students and that teachers should spend more time…

An overview is presented of research findings on how teacher expectations of student performance may alter the ways that teachers treat students, and the possible negative effects of such differential treatment on the behavior and learning of students for whom the teacher holds low expectations. A discussion follows on the teaching implications of…

The result of interviews with 77 students on California state university campuses, this paper explores a set of guidelines designed to facilitate communication between white faculty and minority students. The paper is divided into three sections, each dealing with one of the three areas of the guidelines: classroom interaction, advising, and…

A study explored the extent to which affinity-seeking strategies are used in elementary and secondary school classrooms. Subjects, 311 elementary and secondary school teachers enrolled in classes related to communication instruction, completed a measurement instrument designed to evaluate their use of affinity-seeking strategies. Analysis of the…

Teachers have the paradoxical dual responsibility of fostering children's personal autonomy while ensuring that the children follow necessary rules affecting their health, safety, and educational development. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to determine when children should be allowed freedom and when they need regulation, and on occasion…

A study examined the ways in which adult educators increase learner load. The primary objective of the study, which was conceived within the context of Howard McClusky's concept of margin, i.e., the ratio between the burdens on adult bears and the strengths he/she has to bear them, was to identify the specific instructor characteristics that…

This report offers some concepts and procedures intended to help teachers in motivating students to physically, cognitively, and behaviorally attend to academic tasks in the classroom setting. A discussion is presented on the importance of assessing and identifying the academic behaviors and subject skills that each student can successfully…

This teacher evaluation instrument is designed to test the competencies of inservice and preservice teachers. Four categories of skills are evaluated: (1) instructional programs and processes; (2) classroom management and logistics; (3) professional development and interactions with others; and (4) exceptional students. Within each category,…

The concept of an individual's perception of control was applied to the classroom performance of university students. The initial approach was to use a laboratory simulation of a university classroom to explore the following: (1) whether it is possible to induce feelings of helplessness in a university classroom; (2) effects that feelings of…

The relationship between ethnicity and patterns of student classroom participation was investigated in two university English as second language classrooms. Data were collected through videotaping, audiotaping, and observation of three 50-minute teacher-directed class discussions centering on language exercises. The students were categorized as…

A justification for the study of teachers' routines, as they affect the preparation of lesson plans, prefaces this paper on teachers' thought processes during lesson planning. In focusing on the importance of research into teachers' routines, it is pointed out that lesson preparation and classroom routines permit teachers to direct attention to…

Potential contributions of research on classroom contexts to preservice teacher education curriculum are outlined in this paper. A review of traditional teacher effectiveness research cites studies that either extrapolated from laboratory research to design a teaching model or used direct classroom observations to correlate behaviors to outcomes…

A qualitative study was made of the daily experiences of young children and their teachers in a nonprofit day care center. The study's major focus concerned the orientations of four day care teachers toward children's individual and social learning experiences. Key concerns of the study were values, classroom interaction, and social continuity. By…

The purpose of this study was to examine the combined effects of student participation and of realistic levels of vagueness terms on student achievement and attitudes. Ninety-six sixth graders from a middle school in Georgia were randomly assigned to one of eight groups defined by possible combinations of two teacher uncertainty conditions, two…

Many sincere, well-prepared, and technically qualified teachers of English as a second language (ESL) are awkward in class, stressed, and insecure, showing little excitement or energy. The missing element in training programs for ESL teachers is a good basic course in drama. It is an expression at both the visual and auditory levels, is a medium…